Hey everyone, and welcome to another bit of WoW History! Every week, we look down at important events that happened in WoW for that week!

Another member of the WoW team moves on, and we have a lot of instanced content! Shall we begin?

2016

October 13th, 2016

Tom Chilton steps down as Game Director. The artist formerly known as Kalgan announced to be retiring from his functions as Game Director for World of Warcraft. He was one of the three Lead Designers for the Burning Crusade expansion (along with Rob Pardo and Jeffrey Kaplan), and the sole Lead Designer for Wrath of the Lich King. From Cataclysm onward, he was promoted to Game Director. Since his retirement, the Game Director spot went to Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas.

Not to worry though, he didn't retire for good! He's currently working on a secret project with Blizzard. Maybe we'll find out more about it at this year's Blizzcon?

2014

October 14th, 2014

Patch 6.0.2 is released! This is The Iron Tide, the prepatch to the Warlords of Draenor expansion, implementing many of the features to be used in the expansion. Highlights include:

New Character Models - All the vanilla WoW races (Humans, Gnomes, Dwarves, Night Elves, Orcs, Trolls, Tauren, and Undead) received a model overhaul, increasing their model textures while retaining much of the original feel for the races. Draenei and Blood Elves would also receive overhauls later in WoD.If you're feeling nostalgic, you can see the old character models with an option on the System > Advanced menu.

Iron Horde Incursion - The pre-expansion event. The Iron Horde has turned the Dark Portal in the Blasted Lands red and started their invasion of Azeroth from there, with one of the main casualties being the Alliance stronghold, Nethergarde Keep. One of the rewards from the event was a Time-Locked Box, that can drop from the Iron Horde mobs.

Like in the Fall of Theramore, you can visit the past and witness Blasted Lands before the Iron Horde invasion by talking to Zidormi, on the border of Blasted Lands and Swamp of Sorrows.

Dungeon Revamp: Upper Blackrock Spire - Blackrock Spire has been taken by Warlord Zaela and the Ironmarch Expedition, and plans on destroying Stormwind with an army of Iron Stars. Stop her in this specially remade instance!Stat Squish - Stats on every single piece of gear ingame have been reduced, to make stat increase linear accross all levels. To make sure soloing past raids is still easy, players will now deal significantly increased damage against enemies at least 10 levels below them.Inventory Changes - Many changes also happened to help alleviate inventory slot issues, such as:

Tradeskill materials can now stack up to 200 items.

Toy Box - Fun items obtained in your journeys can now be learned and they go to your Toy Box, where you can organize and see how many you have or are missing!

Reagent Bank - A new bank tab exclusive for profession reagents. You can now stack and organize your reagents very quickly.

2011

October 14th, 2011

On this day, PTR testing for the Cataclysm's Caverns of Time instances started, with a major focus on the Well of Eternity instance,

When you zone into the instance, your entire party is turned into Night Elves, and your mission here is to ensure the events that will lead to the Great Sundering will happen. Help young, uncorrupted Illidan reach the Well of Eternity and retrieve some of it's powerful magical waters. Bosses in this instance include:

Peroth'arn - Fellow Highborne and close friend to Xavius, Peroth'arn was the first person to receive the Satyr's Gift from Xavius himself.

Queen Azshara - The Light of Lights, Queen of the Highborne, and responsible for summoning the Legion into the Well. You don't directly fight her in the instance, instead fighting some of her advisors. She's again seen during the Azsuna questline as a vision to Prince Farondis, but we have yet to deal with her.

Mannoroth and Captain Varo'then - They both serve as the last line of defense of the Well of Eternity. Mannoroth is the Pit Lord whose blood would eventually corrupt the entire Orc race, and Varo'then is the leader of Azshara's Royal Guard.

2008

October 14th, 2008 - Echoes of Doom PatchPatch 3.0.2 is released! This is Echoes of Doom, the pre Wrath of the Lich King patch, implementing many features from the expansion. Highlights include:

Achievement System - Achievements are finally introduced! An all-new way to track your progression ingame. If you logged on this day, any and all retroactive achievements will have this date.

New Profession: Inscription - This profession allows players to create items such as Darkmoon Cards, Glyphs and Runes.

New Mounts and Pets Tab - Now, instead of wasting inventory slots, mounts and pets can be learned and accessible in an exclusive tab where you can easily organize them. Mount and pet collectors rejoiced!

Barber Shops - Barber Shops have opened all across capital cities! Now you're able to customize your character's hair and accessories for a very small fee. Visiting and customizing your character on a barber shop will give you the achievement Shave and a Haircut.

Dalaran has emerged! - The magical city of Dalaran has emerged from it's location in the Alterac Mountains and left a massive crater behind. Dalaran became the major site of operations on the efforts against the Lich King, and it was brought to the Crystalsong Forest in Northrend.

2005

October 10th, 2005

Patch 1.8.0 is released! This is the Dragons of Nightmare patch, which marked the first appearance of the Dragons of Nightmare! Highlights include:

New World Boss: Dragons of Nightmare - Mysterious portals to the Emerald Dream in Duskwood, The Hinterlands, Ashenvale and Feralas started pouring dragons corrupted within the Emerald Dream. Ysondre, Lethon, Emeriss and Taerar would appear a few times per week, one up at a time, and would drop gear with Nature Resistance with it.With the Shattering that happened with Cataclysm, those Dragons were removed from the game. Ysondre, the leader of the Dragons of Nightmare, became a questgiver in Feralas, in a quest involving the redemption of them all. This proves successful for a time, as Ysondre was again drawn back to the corruption, and became a boss in the The Emerald Nightmare.

The portals that the Dragons of Nightmare used to spawn from are now used as pathways for Druids, in their Class Hall.

Silithus Revamp - Silithus has received a complete revamp, as the Twilight's Hammer show it's presence in the zone, and the druids of the Cenarion Circle investigate them. This is the very first step towards the massive event to open the gates of Ahn'Qiraj.Druid Talent revamp - Druids received some very significant changes that perdure to this day, including the birth of the universally loved Moonkin Form!

Comments

Comment by Ruski

on 2017-10-11T13:14:04-05:00

I remember (a million years ago...) when our guild was pretty far into raiding MC and BWL, we attempted one of the dragons - I believe the one in Duskwood - and were very quickly wiped :) Took us a few attempts, but eventually we got one of 'em down. Back in the day, with limited raiding opportunities, these dragons were pretty popular. I also recall newer players not knowing just how powerful these dragons were and attempting to engage them only to get one-shot instantly xD

Comment by JDailey

on 2017-10-11T13:18:48-05:00

I love reading these. There is always something like makes me go "Wow, it was that long ago".

Comment by DanJack

on 2017-10-11T13:24:34-05:00

The 4 dragons were super fun fights! The one in Duskwood was a popular fight since it was so close to the alliance. It was fun telling noobs to not go up that hill and you'd watch them go anyways :P

Comment by Ruski

on 2017-10-11T13:39:02-05:00

The 4 dragons were super fun fights! The one in Duskwood was a popular fight since it was so close to the alliance. It was fun telling noobs to not go up that hill and you'd watch them go anyways :P

Yes! Exactly! You'd hear somebody in general ask what's over there, get warned by a few vets not to go there, and a few minutes later they'd come back with "Yeah, should've listened to you guys..."

Comment by LilyValentin

on 2017-10-11T13:48:54-05:00

I remember when the Wrath pre-launch event was going on. I miss the zombie armies.

Comment by mbboulder

on 2017-10-11T13:49:58-05:00

"Silithus revamp" lol

Comment by Eighjan

on 2017-10-11T14:37:38-05:00

"Silithus revamp" lol

... first of many. =P

Comment by Stormeey

on 2017-10-11T16:45:02-05:00

i remember the day achieves came out. been chasing them ever since!

Comment by AlakeiThancan

on 2017-10-11T20:45:48-05:00

You were level 40 and questing through Duskwood? Even back in Vanilla, the zone was meant for levels 20 through 30.

The first dragon of Nightmare I saw was in Duskwood too. I was on a twenty something toon, a Hunter, and had been told it was a special mob that you could tame as a hunter. Let's just say it didn't go so well.

(For the record, I was 8 at the time, so I was a tad more naïve than now.)

Comment by fredtheshred

on 2017-10-12T05:07:43-05:00

Ah, the dragons. I had started playing WoW pretty recently when they came out, as like all newbies a lot of things were complete mysteries to me.

So I get to the infamous glade and see the massive dragon there while questing with a friend, and behind the dragon, a portal of sorts. It made perfect sense to try to find a way to bypass the dragon so that we could reach the portal and explore the wonders that would lay beyond. My buddy got one-shot and I did get to the portal, which was of course a placeholder, and I was stuck there with a massive dragon blocking the exit. Repairs were actually not cheap then to boot, so that went... not so well.

Comment by lovelywaz

on 2017-10-12T10:21:21-05:00

Silithus Revamp .... LIES, all lies i tell ya!

Comment by nibbihak

on 2017-10-12T12:44:39-05:00

i'm not sure exactly when i started playing wow (because i initially had a US trial account before realising there was an EU version) but i do remember that i started playing during the echoes of doom patch so i'm taking this as my unofficial 9 year anniversary!

my getting into the game was caused by me being bored in my granmas house when i was 12 and thinking it would be fun to try out that "nerdy" warcraft game.

what I experienced that day as a fresh toon in a -- looking back on it-- unusually active mulgore has never been matched in my gaming experience since but a little bit of that magic still trickles through whenever i log in <3

Comment by Halgrimmdk

on 2017-10-13T01:41:11-05:00

Dragons... Yeah my guild was farming Nature Resistance gear for Ahn'Qiraj, so the drops were important. We had alts and warlocks stationed by the spawnpoints and it was always a race to get there first - us or one other guild, or the hordies. First full raid engages, the second tries if first one wipes.

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